ADELAIDE, Australia, July 16 (UPI) — Australian researchers say obese men are less likely than others to taste fat and less likely to react physiologically.

Researchers at the University of Adelaide in Australia not only found lean men were more likely to detect the taste of fat but the fat was more likely to stimulate gut hormones that are released into the bloodstream and help suppress appetite.

“At this point it is not possible to tell whether reduced responsiveness to the taste of fat or reduced gut hormone release causes over-consumption of fat, or whether eating a high-fat diet impairs taste and hormonal responses to fat,” lead investigator Christine Feinle-Bisset says in a statement. “We found that being obese was associated with a reduced ability to detect fat taste, and with reduced release of an appetite-suppressing gut hormone.”

Feinle-Bisset and colleagues asked lean men and obese men to sip drinks with small amounts of fat and indicate when they could taste the fat. The researchers also measured blood levels of a hormone that is normally released from the gut when fat is consumed.

The findings were presented at the annual meeting of the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior in Pittsburgh.